🇬🇧 China’s Bully-Diplomacy

When foreign leaders bow to China’s irate demands that they do not meet with the Dalai Lama it is by no means out of respect. It is because China transforms into a thug, totally resistant to reason.

By Mette Holm, 8 February, 2015

Recently,
Tibet’s exiled religious leader the Dalai Lama attended President Obama’s
National Prayer Breakfast in Washington DC. The US president is one of very few
leaders in a position to ignore the Chinese demand not to meet the Dalai Lama.
Most other states kowtow to China’s threats of freezing foreign policy, trade
and/or aid in order to keep them from meeting the Tibetan leader.

So when the
Dalai Lama visits Denmark on February 11 and 12 for public teachings, the
Danish government will not receive him, neither will other European leaders –
apart from, perhaps the Pope, although a date for such a meeting has not yet
been fixed.

In general,
China wants to play a responsible role in the world and spends billions of
dollars on an international charm offensive, and dollar as well as panda
diplomacy – only not on the issue of Tibet; here, China’s growing confidence in
diplomacy and force of argument stops short, and bullying takes over.

Trade or
reason?

Countries don’t
have much choice, e.g. China’s neighbour Mongolia where Dalai Lama is religious
leader to more than half the population; here the Dalai Lamas ninth visit to
the democratic Mongolia was cancelled, because China’s president and communist
party boss, Xi Jinping, came to visit. And these days no representatives of the
government will meet with Dalai Lama, although a large number of MPs will.

Denmark
hesitates to sacrifice a blossoming relationship with China. Several Danish
prime ministers have met with the Dalai Lama, most recently in 2009, which
unleashed China’s wrath and cost dearly on trade and cultural exchange.

In 1989, when
the Dalai Lama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in the wake of the People’s
Liberation Army’s crackdown on student demonstrators in Tian An Men, China was
enraged – but impotent due to international isolation following the crackdown.

However, in
2010, when a Chinese dissident, Liu Xiaobo, was awarded the Peace Prize China
simply froze diplomatic and trade relations with Norway, ignoring the fact that
the prize is awarded not by the Norwegian government, but by an independent
organisation.

In 2014, when
the Dalai Lama returned to Oslo to celebrate the prize he received 25 years
earlier, the Norwegian government snubbed him and thus earned the – undesirable
– praise of the Chinese government.

In 2001, the
Dalai Lama met with 11 foreign leaders. In 2013 it was down to two. The British
leader David Cameron met him in 2012. Here too, China froze relations, and Mr
Cameron was forced to cancel a trip to China the following year.

Prominent Global Ambassador for his cause

The Dalai Lama
has promoted the Tibetan cause incessantly during his 56 years in exile. During
those same years, China’s communication has evolved from primitive propaganda
to offering a sophisticated narrative on many platforms, domestically as well
as internationally.

China invests
heavily in controlling and managing information in a large domestic intranet as
well as in the wide surrounding world to conquer hearts and minds of the rest
of us: the exertion of soft power, including the Xinhua News Service’s huge
flat screen in Times Square in New York City, a massive world-wide promotion of
culture and language and a global TV news channel to challenge the world view
of e.g. BBC World, al- Jazeera and CNN.

This new,
relatively sophisticated soft power approach makes it even more remarkable that
China’s rulers on the issue of Tibet and the Tibetans have remained locked in
their own myopic propaganda, albeit here too, they now rely on 21st century
communication.

The Dalai Lama
has, in turn, become one of the world’s foremost global ambassadors with his
message of and desire for peace and peaceful coexistence with China, in
accordance with the Chinese constitution. Dalai Lama is the 14th reincarnation
of the Buddha of compassion, Avalokiteshvara, the political and religious
leader of Tibet for almost 500 years.

“Liberation” of Tibet

China’s
People’s Liberation Army “liberated” Tibet in 1951, and the founder
of the People’s Republic, Mao Zedong, felt called to convert the Dalai Lama to
communism. Mao declared, “Religion is poison!” – which was hardly the way to
convince or convert Tibet’s leader at the tender age of 17.

Systematically
and violently, China set out to break down the Tibetans’ feudal rule and
destroy their faith. Feudalism was easily dispelled, the Tibetans’ faith proved
much stronger. In 1959, an armed uprising in Lhasa to get rid of the Chinese
“liberators” failed and the Dalai Lama fled to India, where he has lived in
exile ever since along with about 150,000 exiled compatriots. In China, Mao
Zedong severely punished the Tibetans for their unwavering faith with the
destruction of 6,000 shrines during the Cultural Revolution, 1966-76.

China manages
Tibet with imprudence, arrogance and brutal superior force. Domestically, China
has led a ceaseless, often outright mendacious propaganda campaign to convince
the Chinese that the “Dalai clique” are international terrorists, the
Dalai Lama is an evil separatist, who calls for rebellion and secession; they
have smeared him as a human, an institution and a monk, described him as a
demon, a fiendish “splittist” and more to that effect.

Dalai Lama
responds that because they repeatedly put his patience, endurance and strength
to the test the Chinese leaders have been his best teachers. They sharpen his
sense of humour and compassion, he says. And throughout the years he has used
his moral authority to sustain the non-violent course, although Tibetans are
tortured, imprisoned and killed in China, described by the Dalai Lama as
“cultural genocide.”

Democratisation
of Tibetan politics

In 2011 the
Dalai Lama realised a long-cherished dream of democratisation of Tibetan
politics. He handed over his political powers to a Prime Minister, Lobsang
Sangay, Harvard Doctor of Laws, born and raised in exile and democratically
elected by exiled compatriots. Like the rest of the Chinese populace, Tibetans
in China have no say in the choice of leaders.

The Dalai Lama
has stated that his successor, the 15th reincarnation, likely will not be
reborn within China. Furthermore, last autumn he hinted that the institution
might stop with him, which China – rightly – perceived as a powerful obstacle
to its plans of hijacking the appointment and succession of the Tibetan
spiritual leader.

In the absence
of biological heirs to high office in Tibetan Buddhism, the top two lamas, the
Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama, identify and appoint each other’s
reincarnation. The 10th Panchen Lama died in 1989. And from his exile, in 1995
the Dalai Lama recognised a six-year-old boy in China to be the 11th Panchen
Lama. The central government in Beijing apprehended the boy and his parents.
They haven’t been seen since. The Chinese leaders installed a boy of their
choice as the official reincarnation and moved him to Beijing to be trained by
teachers loyal to the central government. Tibetans do not regard the Chinese
Panchen Lama as legitimate, even if they are forced to give that impression.

Atheist China
shows “belief” in re-incarnation

Tibetans
jokingly state that China’s atheist leaders have taken to believing in
reincarnation, but of course, their intent is to install their own handpicked
15th Dalai Lama when the time comes (the current will turn 80 this year). And voila,
Beijing has equipped itself with the spiritual abilities and authority to
appoint the Tibetan religious leader. In this respect the Dalai Lama’s
relinquishing of political power was a severe blow to Beijing’s ambitions in
Tibet.

In October,
China’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman declared that in terms of re-birth of the
Dalai Lama and other living Buddhas, China has a “set religious procedure and
historic custom. China follows a policy of freedom of religion and belief, and
this naturally includes having to respect and protect the ways of passing on
Tibetan Buddhism.”

And then, in
classic Chinese propaganda-style: “The title of Dalai Lama is conferred by
the central government, which has hundreds of years of history. The 14th Dalai
Lama has ulterior motives, and is seeking to distort and negate history, which
is damaging to the normal order of Tibetan Buddhism.”

Ulterior
motives? It takes one to know one! It is very difficult to imagine that even
the Chinese rulers themselves sincerely believe that interpretation of Tibetan
history.

When visiting
Tibet, it is painfully obvious that Chinese and Tibetans have very little in
common, and their coexistence is precarious. The Chinese are enthralled by
material progress and economic development. Tibetans are not against
development, but spiritual values, nature and the balance of the universe are
equally important, and culture and religion are intertwined. And apparently,
the more the Tibetans’ belief is trampled on, the stronger it gets.

China maintains
an overwhelming and heavily armed military and police presence among Tibetans,
who make up less than half a per cent of China’s population, are declared
pacifists and whose most potent weapon is self-immolation.

Decades of
massive domestic misinformation means that many Chinese believe that the six
million Tibetans are a gang of violent terrorists with evil intentions – led by
shadowy forces abroad. China tries to communicate the same message abroad, but
less successfully.

It is strange
that the Chinese leaders do not recognise – and perhaps even do not understand
– that you may well be a friend of China, respect and admire the country’s
progress, recognise the nation’s unity while wholeheartedly supporting the
Dalai Lama’s earnest, peaceful struggle for genuine autonomy in Tibet in full
compliance with China’s constitution; rather, China perceives any suggestion of
dialogue with the Tibetans as an insult and undue interference in internal
affairs.

The tragedy is
that decades of brutality and false speech has been of tremendous damage to
both Chinese and Tibetans, and thus to China – and the world.

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